'That post was so hard to cover for me. It was very, very stressful. I could barely see half of the lobby.'

The dozing guard - who was named the 'Security Officer of the Year' was spotted by another Port Authority worker who took the picture.

The image emerged just the day after President Obama revealed his biggest fear was a nuclear attack on Manhattan after brushing off Russia as a major threat to the United States.

However, Basher vented his fury on
the Port Authority and said that he shouldn't have been placed at the
south lobby of the tower and he denied he was asleep.

'To
my knowledge, actually I was not sleeping. I was mistaken to be
sleeping. I was exercising my eyes,' he insisted to the New York Post.

'The security division is so poorly managed . . . Every security guard that works for them is mentally stressed,' he said.

A
Port Authority insider admitted to the New York Post that the incident
was troubling and said they would take the security firm Durst
Organization to task.

Embarrassing: A security camera is positioned next to a barbed wire fence outside Ground Zero and One World Trade Center on March 21, 2014 in New York City. Earlier this week a teenager successfully evaded security, climbed One World Trade Center and posted photos of the view to social networking sites

Durst spokesman Jordan Barowitz confirmed that Basher 'was terminated on the spot after he was found sleeping on the job.'

Construction workers at the nearly completed tower were infuriated by the image.

'There’s our hardworking security right there . . . What a joke!' one said to The New York Post.

In a week where security at One World Trade Center has dominated the news, the base jumpers who filmed as they leaped off One World Trade Center in a daredevil stunt have said they didn't mean to be disrespectful.

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James Brady and Andrew Rossig, who leaped off the 104th floor of Freedom Tower with their friend, Marko Markovich, in September, said the jump was supposed to be a private moment.

But, after handing themselves into police Monday, the friends uploaded footage of the jump, made at 3am on September 30, last year. The video has quickly gone viral, with more than 200,000 views in just over one day.

Collared: CNN producer Yon Pomrenze, 35, and
26-year-old cameraman Connor Boals were arrested Tuesday after trying
three times to break into the World Trade Center site

Their actions were condemned by the Port Authority and New York Police Department, which said the jump 'violated the spirit of respect and reverence for this sacred site that almost all connected with the WTC project feel'.

This followed the news that 16-year-old Justin Casquejo, of Weehakwen, bypassed security and climbed to the top of 1 World Trade Center.

The teen was arrested at 6am on Sunday and charged with misdemeanor criminal trespass, said Joe Pentangelo, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the trade center site.

The teen accessed the construction site of the nearly completed tower by slipping through a 1-foot opening in a fence at around 4.00 a.m., Pentangelo said. He then allegedly entered the tower by climbing scaffolding.

Captured: Police allegedly seized the GoPro video of the BASE jump during a search of the four men's home last month, and it was not posted online until Monday

Going down: The initial free-fall from the 1,776ft tall One World Trade Center tower is several hundred feet

City that never sleeps: One of the jumpers descends on the streets of New York City

Confessed: James Brady, left, and Andrew Rossig, right, are accompanied by attorney Timothy Parlatore as they turn themselves in to police on Monday

'He’s a skinny kid who got through a skinny hole,' a police source told the New York Post.

Casquejo is said to have taken an elevator up to the 88th floor despite not having any identification, according to the paper.

He was let off at the 88th floor and hoofed it up to the 104th floor where he sneaked past a sleeping guard to access the roof.

That guard has since been fired, the spokesman said, but the elevator operator was ab;e to keep his job because he is in a union.

Sneaky: Weehawken, New Jersey teen Justin Casquejo, 16, was arrested after successfully making it to the top of One World Trade Center in the middle of the night on March 16

And as part of an investigation to expose perceived lapses in security, CNN producer Yon Promrenze, 35, and his 26-year-old cameraman Connor Boals tried to break in on Tuesday night.

The two men first tried blatantly walking through a security gate on Vesey and Washington Streets but were stopped by an officer, Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman said.

'If a 16-year-old can get on the site, we should be able to get in as well,' one of them allegedly told the officer.